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In lugnet.admin.general, Richard Franks writes:
> > I've been following Richard Franks's suggestion for the past couple of weeks
> > and trying to consider 50 an "average post" midpoint.
>
> Erm, I'm flattered! :) But I really didn't mean to say that anyone should
> give average posts '50', or any other figure. LUGNET is full of worthy
> (average) posts, I totally respect someone who would therefore rate an
> 'average' post as 40, 30 or whatever.
I wanted to try that out, to see how well it worked and, after doing that
statistical analysis last week (in reply to your original message about what
50 could mean) was encouraged that the average average was already near 50
(I think it was 56 or something like that).
So far, it feels comfortable (to me, at least) to mark a 50 if my reaction was
an average or typical reaction (read: the average over all articles I've ever
read, not the predicted reaction of the average person; the ratings are
supposed to be personal recommendations/reactions).
> What I meant was that people will tend to see '50' as an average - eg Scott
> who automatically considers <20 as a terrible mark (worthy of justification)
> ..which is why I feel it would solve a lot of problems to remove the ratings
> from general view.. and let people use tables to see the most popular posts.
You mean...like...don't ever show the composite numbers or raw data? Just
use the composite ratings to produce listings, but never show the numbers?
I wonder how that would affect custom clients (like the ones DanB and JeremyS
are writing) which certainly could benefit from knowing the numbers. I think
in order for those software clients to be most useful, they need that raw data.
Or do you mean hiding the ratings from general view by default, and perhaps
making the user go through some sort of brief overview page in order to enable
the view of the numbers?
> I would probably rate quite a few more posts if the scores were removed -
> there is a lot of fluff around.. but it's *really* not worth it (to me) to
> make someone feel disenfranchised(1) by rating an otherwise harmless post as
> 0.
Hmm. Well, I wouldn't recommend marking a harmless post a 0 -- save 0 for
harmful posts, unless you're restricting yourself to using exclusively 0 or
100. A zero should indicate that the article *shouldn't* have been posted,
for whatever reason -- that it was just pure noise or actually hurtful. Or,
more specifically, that no one should bother to read the article. IMHO, there
is lots and lots of harmless fluff that people should read -- for fun or
entertainment.
For example, when someone puts up photos of a new model that blows everyone
away, and it winds up with a score of, say, 90+, it tends to generate several
"wow, that's cool -- keep it up!" types of messages. I've been marking those
40, 50, or 60 depending on how much new (useful) information they add. If
the reply just says "that's cool" I tend to mark it a 40 (or sometimes 30);
if the reply helped me find something I might've missed, I mark it a 60 (or
sometimes 70). But most replies of that type are just harmless fluff --
people patting each other on the back. Those are important messages to the
community as a whole, even though taken along many are just noise that
doesn't particularly enrich the reading experience. (Who but the poster of
a cool model wants to read 20 "wow, that's cool" replies? But when those
replies talk about things in specific that they like, that becomes much more
helpful and less fluffy to other readers besides the original poster).
> > Also, do you think that the default rating should be 0 rather than 50? For
> > a default of 0 would mean that articles tended almost always to go upwards
> > in rating over time, rather than either upwards or downwards -- in other
> > words, no one would feel that their post was ever "marked down from a 50
> > to a 30 or 40," but rather that their post was "marked up from a 0 to a 30
> > or 40."
>
> No - I think the current default=50 paradigm is great - just that by making
> the entire focus of the rating mechanism the scores themselves, people
> understandably get hung up on them.
What if...hmm...what if, instead of a number 0 to 100, there were a small
horizontal colored bar representing the number graphically?
--Todd
>
> Richard
>
> 1 - Unwelcome, picked upon, boring, unworthy, afraid to post, etc - some of
> these I've seen people compain about, others I've felt myself to varying
> extents; as a result of the rating system.
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> I think in order for those software clients to be most useful, they need that
> raw data.
Agreed - as I see it, the problems created by the rating system aren't because
some posts are bigger than others, but rather because people can't avoid seeing
the ratings that they recieved. Especially when the ratings are for harmless
'me-too' posts - if it really stinks, or is really great.. then it is good when
the author sees the rating!
> > I would probably rate quite a few more posts if the scores were removed -
> > there is a lot of fluff around.. but it's *really* not worth it (to me) to
> > make someone feel disenfranchised(1) by rating an otherwise harmless post as
> > 0.
>
> Hmm. Well, I wouldn't recommend marking a harmless post a 0 -- save 0 for
> harmful posts, unless you're restricting yourself to using exclusively 0 or
> 100. A zero should indicate that the article *shouldn't* have been posted,
Yup - it wasn't a great example.. probably should have made it '30' instead!
> What if...hmm...what if, instead of a number 0 to 100, there were a small
> horizontal colored bar representing the number graphically?
Do you mean in the multiple-post group listings? If it was easy to tell a 35,
from a 50, then the casual (mostly-harmless) authors of me-toos would still
feel bad on a regular basis.
What about a simple 3-colour interface:
00-33% - blue
34-66% - green
67-100%- red
Or to distinguish between real turkeys, and super-posts:
00-15% - black/dark blue
16-29% - blue
30-70% - green
71-84% - red
85-100%- bright red
The latter is an un-even scale - the benefit of it is that most people will get
a uniform grading (less bad feelings).. but it is easy to scan between great
posts and horrid posts.
This might actually be better than removing the ratings from the general
display - the concerns that I had were mainly that 'harmless' fluff posts were
being put to 30-49.. (which is great from a system-sorting POV), but people
were feeling bad because of it.
Richard
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Richard Franks wrote:
[snip]
> Or to distinguish between real turkeys, and super-posts:
> 00-15% - black/dark blue
> 16-29% - blue
> 30-70% - green
> 71-84% - red
> 85-100%- bright red
[snip]
I think it should be the other way around.
Red for low bandwidth, violet for high bandwidth.
/Eric McC/
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In lugnet.admin.general, Charles Eric McCarthy writes:
> Richard Franks wrote:
> [snip]
> > Or to distinguish between real turkeys, and super-posts:
> > 00-15% - black/dark blue
> > 16-29% - blue
> > 30-70% - green
> > 71-84% - red
> > 85-100%- bright red
> [snip]
>
> I think it should be the other way around.
> Red for low bandwidth, violet for high bandwidth.
Yeah, the colours are a bit squiffy!
Bronze, light bronze, silver, light gold, gold?
(Silver being light grey or white)
Richard
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In lugnet.admin.general, Charles Eric McCarthy writes:
> Richard Franks wrote:
> [snip]
> > Or to distinguish between real turkeys, and super-posts:
> > 00-15% - black/dark blue
> > 16-29% - blue
> > 30-70% - green
> > 71-84% - red
> > 85-100%- bright red
> [snip]
>
> I think it should be the other way around.
> Red for low bandwidth, violet for high bandwidth.
Blue and purple/violet are automatically out anyway because of traditional link
colorings. Green is out because green text looks horrible on white background.
A statistically significant portion of the population is also some form of
colorblind -- and brightnesses of a single color work just as well for relaying
information on a single scale as two colors. Two colors are most effective
when a two-dimensional scale is needed (not really the case here).
--Todd
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